【Watch Woman Living in A Motel Room Online】

The Watch Woman Living in A Motel Room Onlineblue-tongued skink, also known as a blue-tongued lizard, is already fascinating due to its colourful gob, but researchers have discovered its secret power.

Ordinarily when threatened, the lizard uses its tongue as a warning to predators.

SEE ALSO: Meet the tardigrade...the world's most 'indestructible' animal

But it's the final throes of the skink's defence that has excited researchers: As a last-ditch attempt, it shows the back of its tongue, which is more UV-intense and luminous compared to the front.

That could be a useful defence against its main predators, such as birds, snakes, and monitor lizards, who are thought to have UV vision.

The research, led by Martin Whiting of Macquarie University in Australia, has been published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

Found around Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, the blue-tongued skink is usually camouflaged, but researchers sought out to find out how the lizard wards off attackers.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Using a portable spectrophotometer, which is used to measure the intensity of light, researchers measured the tongues of 13 skinks where they found the back of the tongue was twice as bright as its tip.

Say "ah." Credit: Getty Images/Imagemore

Attacks were simulated on the skink using a snake, a bird and other threats to see how it would react, when it was discovered the UV-intense part of its tongue was only revealed right at the very end of its efforts.

"The lizards restrict the use of full-tongue displays to the final stages of a predation sequence when they are most at risk, and do so in concert with aggressive defensive behaviours that amplify the display, such as hissing or inflating their bodies," lead author Arnaud Badiane said in a statement online.

"This type of display might be particularly effective against aerial predators, for which an interrupted attack would not be easily resumed due to loss of inertia."

Like any defence, success hinges on timing. More specifically for the skink, not being too late, nor too early.

"If performed too early, a display may break the lizard’s camouflage and attract unwanted attention by predators and increase predation risk," Badiane added. "If performed too late, it may not deter predators."

[h/t CNET]

---

Featured Video For You

---

---

• Social Good
• Life
• Games
• Tech
• Shopping
• Deals
• Science
• Entertainment

• Weather app glitch makes it look like hell is basically freezing over
• Charlotte Brontë’s Favorite Critic
• Jackson Mac Low Restlessly Reinvents the Line
• Wandering the Westminster Dog Show
• Character AI reveals AvatarFX, a new AI video generator
• Bartolomeo Scappi Was the Renaissance’s Most Innovative Chef
• Geronimo Takes Flight: A Beaver’s Adventure in the Sky
• The Puppets Are Doing Just Fine, Thanks for Asking
• Elon Musk makes request to Reddit CEO to take down posts he didn't like
• One Fundred Dollars: Remembering J.S.G. Boggs and His Fake Money

• GoFundMe, now 10, had a historic year of charitable giving
• 32 tweets about living in NYC that are way too real
• Hackers are targeting kindergartens for profit, warns government
• 'Cyberpunk 2077' review: A slick game dogged by miles of asterisks
• HBO's 'Avenue 5' is the perfect companion to this crapfest of a year
• Barack Obama's post
• Google adds authoritative info on COVID
• Solving David Dobrik's new puzzle could win you $100,000
• 13 animals with unlikely best friends
• ICYMI, being low level at a tech company like Apple sucks so much more now

• Trump's science adviser pick is actually a good scientist
• Staff Picks: Raymond Pettibon, Jaume Plensa, Carlos Fonseca
• How a Forgotten American Diplomat Resisted the Armenian Genocide
• Jackson Mac Low Restlessly Reinvents the Line
• Mac Mini M2 Desktop deal: Save $100 at Best Buy
• John Aubrey’s Diary, Illustrated
• Alexia Arthurs Wins 2017 Plimpton Prize; Vanessa Davis Wins Terry Southern Prize
• Parting Shot: On Japanese Death Poems and Famous Last Words
• NYT Connections hints and answers for April 26: Tips to solve 'Connections' #685.
• Sour, Sweet, Bitter Spicy: An Installation at MOCA

• Whale Vomit Episode 5: Startup Monarchy
• Having Trouble Sleeping? Read This.
• This Might Be the Only Time Marcel Proust Appeared on Film
• How Sidney Sokhona’s Films Changed African Cinema
• TikTok wants me to host a dinner party. Is that an actual recession indicator?
• Drawing and Imagining: Art by Alasdair Gray
• Why a Renowned Sculptor Voluntarily Entered an Internment Camp
• Got 20 Million Bucks? Move to Grey Gardens, Why Don’t You
• Samsung Unpacked stream is set for May 12, 2025
• The Making of a Comics Biography, Part 2